“According to the Financial Times, a ‘Super Bowl’ type audience is expected to tune in to coverage of the Inauguration of Barack Obama tomorrow. To mark this occasion, we are proud to announce the release of a new commercial that will be airing all day tomorrow in select markets on Black Entertainment Television. Our newest ad is just the beginning of a year-long campaign that will include a series of commercials for use on the web and on broadcast TV.”

Obama is half black, is that an accomplishment? Or is it an accomplishment to become president? Or is it an accomplishment to be born if you’re black? What is this ad saying? I don’t think it’s inspiring, I think it’s condescending, and not really pro-life when you could just as easily end the ad with a picture of our prisons full of black men. I am not being racist, I’m saying this is not the approach to take, or maybe it will be effective for an Af-Amer audience. Knowing the pro-abortion, pro-infanticide vehemence of Obama, frankly this ad almost made me ill. Sorry, we are discussing, and this is my honest view, it’s too full of mixed metaphors.

the message is..what? Don\’t kill a child ONLY because they can grow up to be president? Is the message \”Don\’t abort because you may have the next Obama\” better than \”Don\’t abort because you may have a child?\” If the child is being born into the squalor of New Delhi, is it less worthy of our protection or do we merely focus on babies that are believed to have potential in America?

Must we use the overplayed image of Obama to defend our position now? this is utterly sad that we must now stoop so low as to use the enemy\’s standard bearer as the reason not to kill a child!

I\’m speechless, dumbfounded, and unbelievably sad that our world has decayed to this point…is there a Trad Catholic enclave that I can take my family to live in peace?

Some people, like Forrest and James, try really, really, really hard to miss the point — and it’s not as if the ad’s point were obscure or in any way hidden or hard to understand. Forrest and James have let their antipathy for Obama’s wicked stance on abortion trump the universal truth that everybody, even a grave sinner, is entitled to have his right to life respected.

And no, there is no Trad Catholic enclave anywhere where one can hide from the world and its problems. Catholicism does not retreat and hide.

On The surface, this seems to be a good pro-life video. The arguments normally used to justify abortion are used against the pro-death position when the person in question has achieved something great and/or historic, despite the circumstances surrounding their birth/upbringing. It is clear that the Catholic Vote ad is not showing Obama to be an “evil” person, worthy of life regardless. They are clearly focusing on his achievement or at least his potential. This is where the deeper argument falls short. Needless to say, the commercial wouldn’t have worked showing a guy sitting in a prison cell, but his life is just as valuable. The argument for life based on what a person might do is flawed in that the argument for aborting a Hitler, Stalin, etc., would be equally valid knowing what they will do. Obviously, we do not subscribe to this. Perhaps a more valid approach [at least one, obviously not the only] for those pro-aborts who see the flaws in this type of argument, is one based on the dignity of each individual human being.

I’m torn.
One one hand, it’s a great way to use our culture’s current worshiplike obsession to get out an important message.

However, many people have correctly noted above that it seems to say “your child could grow up to be an Obama- don’t abort him!”. That’s fine on the surface, but what about the millions of children who don’t grow up to be Obamas? What about people who don’t become famous or make speeches? Their lives are just as important and precious to God and should be to us.

The point obviously is that every human life, no matter the circumstances of the child’s conception or birth or upbringing, is intrinsically precious and sacred, bearing within it unknowable potential to affect the world. It does not follow that if the baby doesn’t grow up to be president, that means the baby is not precious, or does not have the same inherent dignity and potential as the baby who grows up to be president.

Really, pro-lifers have been making this argument for a long time. How come the argument becomes confusing or troubling now that it has been applied to Mr. Obama life? You know, even pro-abortion, pro-infanticide socialists who have accomplished nothing of substance in public office and have little more than the barest of qualifications to be president have a right to life and have intrinsic God-given dignity and worth.

This video is good only for those who know it is a pro-life video. For all other audiences, though, it could have been an ad straight from the Obama campaign, which makes it seem like the Church endorses Obama, even though She vehemently disagrees with his pro-abortion stance. Right after the ad says “This child will be…,” the ad should say “Aborted? No. This child will become the first African-American president of the United States.”

I understand the point the video is trying to make…but I agree with those who think it glorifies an advocate of murder. The very same approach could have been taken with the occupation/person allowed to live being someone much more admirable than one of the main proponents of the culture of death. What is meant for a lofty purpose winds up in the gutter once Obam’s image appears.

It’s helpful to remember that this ad is not intended to make pro-lifers more pro-life. What would be the point of that?

This ad is to get pro-choice people or those in between thinking about life and its potential. Those of you who don’t get it are really missing the very obvious point. But luckily that’s okay because it’s not meant for you anyway.
There is a culture war and we need to use media to convert people.

I think that the important word to focus on is IRONIC. If Obama’s mother had followed her son’s stance on abortion then he would have been aborted. She was a poor white women whose husband had left her to raise this child by herself. Fortunatly she had her family to support her. I find this to be extremely ironic considering that Obama said that he would not want his little girls to go through the ‘horrors’ of a ‘surprise’ pregnacy and that he would support their decision if they chose to abort. This is irony pure and simple, and the pro-choice will recognize that and will probably respond with their own commercial (perhaps one about Hitler?). They will hate us for this ad because they know that we are right. At least that is what I assume.

The point or the message of the ad is that it addresses some of the common reasons why people have abortions – they are single moms, the child’s father won’t be around, I’m going to struggle to raise him, his life will be filled with hardships, etc. And all of those objections too often lead people to despair, to think that it is hopeless, and the best thing to do is to abort, for myself and for my child. And President Obama, coming from the circumstances which he does, is simply a counter to that very despair. He is proof that despair does not have to have the last word, but that even in the bleakest of circumstances there can be hope. That’s what makes it so powerful. His life is a testament to hope that counters the despair that so often leads to abortion in the first place.

It’s TV, people aren’t doing theology (or anything else of much consequence).
It appeals to the heart. If one person takes it to heart, it will have done
its job.

Let’s pray that it touches more than one person!

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